'NORTHERN CAMEROONS': Restoration Government’s Official Statement
28 May 2008
Cameroun Republic, the colonial aggressor occupying the Southern Cameroons, believes it is smart. In its continuing wretched attempt to fool the outside world and to deflect internal and international challenge to its colonization of the Southern Cameroons it has desperately tried to blackmail Nigeria to turn a blind eye to the hijack of the territory of the Southern Cameroons and its people by Cameroun Republic.
Lacking any legal foot on which to stand in regard to its theft of the Southern Cameroons it has gone knocking at Nigeria's door. It is begging Nigeria to help it formulate a response to Communication No. 2 filed against it by the Southern Cameroons in the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. That pathetic request has been roundly rebuffed by Nigeria. Piqued at having been rebuffed, Cameroun Republic has decided to use the tool of blackmail, its well-attested stock in trade. It is now telling Nigeria that the Southern Cameroons is seeking to recover the erstwhile Northern Cameroons and that if Nigeria does not adopt the attitude of indifference to Cameroun Republic's colonial occupation of the Southern Cameroons then Cameroun Republic would raise what in its delusional mindset it sees as the spectre of secession of erstwhile Northern Cameroons from Nigeria. Cameroun Republic pretends not to know that there is not the remotest possibility of that happening in a thousand years or more. Speaking through its agents it makes occasional cacophonous utterances about erstwhile Northern Cameroons, fraudulently claiming the UN is now interested in reconstituting the British Cameroons Trust Territory and in granting it independence.
Cameroun Republic has conveniently forgotten its description of Nigeria as a very difficult neighbour and potentially an imperialistic State. It has conveniently forgotten that after its failed ICJ bid to grab the Northern Cameroons, it took the view that Nigeria stole the Northern Cameroons with the complicity of Britain; declared June 1, the day the Northern Cameroons was incorporated into Nigeria, a day of mourning for Cameroun Republic; and stated that the Northern Cameroons was Cameroun Republic's Alsace-Lorraine to be recovered in the future by force if need be.
Given this background it is imperative for the British Southern Cameroons Restoration Government to state clearly and unequivocally that the restoration of the statehood of the Southern Cameroons has nothing whatsoever to do with the erstwhile Northern Cameroons, which since 1 June 1961 lawfully became part and parcel of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The British Southern Cameroons Restoration Government believes the Government of Nigeria is fully aware of this very clear Southern Cameroons position, a position going as far back as the time when Britain administered the Southern Cameroons as part of Nigeria. The Restoration Government also believes that Nigeria is not fooled by this latest of Cameroun Republic's long train of infantile political posturing.
Let the following incontrovertible facts be laid bare for the benefit of those who might not know them.
1. The British Cameroons Trust Territory was since 1924 divided into Northern and Southern Cameroons and administered as separate territories in all respects albeit that both were held under a single Mandates/Trusteeship Agreement.
2. Northern and Southern Cameroons never had any common institutions whether political, economic or social. There was never established in the Northern Cameroons either a House of Representatives or a government responsible for the interest of the territory. In the Northern Cameroons the only existing organs of Government, apart from the Administration, were Native Authorities dealing with purely local matters in their respective native areas.
3. Buea was the capital of the Southern Cameroons and the people of the Northern Cameroons were never represented in the Government or parliament of the Southern Cameroons. There was not even any political party that stood for the two parts of the Trust Territory; the political parties in the Southern Cameroons stood for the exclusive interest of the Southern Cameroons and those in the Northern Cameroons for the exclusive interest of that territory. There was hardly any interaction between the politicians or peoples of the two territories. The Southern Cameroons never spoke for the Northern Cameroons, not even when it was administratively part of Nigeria or when it was holding pre-plebiscite exploratory talks with Cameroun Republic.
4. The following account in a 1952 confidential British Foreign Office memo is instructive in this regard: "The attitude of the literate element in the South of the Cameroons appears to have passed through the following stages; in June 1949 they were anxious for close union with the Northern Cameroons in order jointly to achieve regional status … When the United Nations Visiting Mission arrived in November 1949 they were still asking for regional status in conjunction with the Northern Cameroons … In 1950 their demands for regional status were limited to the area of the Southern Cameroons, the Northern trust territory no longer mentioned. Today they appear to be avers to any connection with the Northern Cameroons. They wish the Southern Cameroons to become a region, disposing, to the exclusion of the northern half of the territory, of the whole of the profits of the Cameroons Development Corporation and the whole of the revenue derived from the activities of the corporation and other concerns of the Cameroons province."
5. The United Nations eventually considered and treated the Northern and Southern Cameroons as practically two separate trust territories. The United Nations Visiting Mission to the Cameroons in 1958 had come to the settled conclusion that the two territories were very dissimilar in every respect and thus endorsing the separation of the two territories since 1924.
6. The Southern and Northern Cameroons pursued their political evolution and economic and social development separately.
7. The United Nations considered the Northern and the Southern Cameroons as separate and distinct units of self-determination. As a result a separate plebiscite was held in each of the territories, on separate dates, and with separate tallying of votes. The Trusteeship Agreement was terminated in respect of the Northern Cameroons on 1 June 1961, and in respect of the Southern Cameroons on 1 October 1961.
8. In practice neither the United Nations, nor the United Kingdom, nor Nigeria, nor Cameroun Republic ever considered or treated the British Cameroons as a unitary trust territory. That is why Nigeria offered to the Northern Cameroons terms of 'joining' that were constitutionally different from those it offered to the Southern Cameroons. The Northern Cameroons was unambiguously informed that if it elected to join Nigeria it would form part of the Northern Region of Nigeria and administered as a separate province of that Region. By contrast the Southern Cameroons was offered the status of a separate and distinct full-fledged Region. One notices a similar difference in status regarding "joining" independent French Cameroun. The Southern Cameroons and independent French Cameroun were to form a two-state federation evidenced by a federal constitution the fruit of common bargain and popular approval. The two states were juridically equal in status. Furthermore, there was no question of the Southern Cameroons becoming a part of Cameroun Republic. By contrast, Cameroun Republic offered the Northern Cameroons either 'provincial autonomy within the Federal Republic' or 'administrative unification' within Cameroun Republic.
9. The Northern Cameroons opted to achieve independence by joining Nigeria. In other words, the Northern Cameroons accepted Nigeria's offer to join Nigeria as a part of the Northern Region of Nigeria and administered as a separate province of that Region. Consequently, in General Assembly Resolution 1608 (XV) the UN decided to terminate the trusteeship agreement with respect to the Northern Cameroons "on 1 June 1961, upon its joining the Federation of Nigeria as a separate province of the Northern Region of Nigeria." In straight language this meant the Northern Cameroons was to be incorporated in Nigeria on the specified date.
10. The incorporation of the Northern Cameroons was the subject of the Exchange of Letters between the United Kingdom and Nigeria dated 29th May 1961. As stated in the Exchange of Letters it was the common understanding of the two States that "the Northern Cameroons should be admitted to the Federation of Nigeria and incorporated in Northern Nigeria …[and that] in accordance with paragraph 4 (a) of Resolution 1608 (XV) of the Fifteenth session of the General Assembly of the United Nations the Government of the United Kingdom will regard the Northern Cameroons as being part of the territory of the Federation of Nigeria with effect from 1st June, 1961." The understandings contained in the Exchange of Letters constituted an agreement (i.e. a treaty) between the two States. The UK Government issued Command Paper 1567 on the Incorporation of the Northern Cameroons in Nigeria.
11. A day after the Anglo-Nigerian Exchange of Letters Cameroun Republic instituted proceedings in the International Court of Justice against the United Kingdom in which it asked the Court to declare that in the application of the Trusteeship Agreement for the British Cameroons, the United Kingdom failed, with regard to the Northern Cameroons, to respect certain obligations flowing from that Agreement. In Case Concerning the Northern Cameroons (1963) therefore, the applicant contended that all it sought was a declaratory judgment of the Court, that prior to the termination of the Trusteeship Agreement the United Kingdom had breached its provisions. The Court found that it could not adjudicate upon the merits of the claim of Cameroun Republic and that the judicial function does not extend to rendering a declaratory judgment in the nature of an academic pronouncement or a moot decision. In the opinion of the Court Resolution 1608 (XV) by which the United Nations terminated the Trusteeship Agreement with respect to the Northern Cameroons on 1 June 1961, had had definitive legal effect. This meant that the United Nations' decision would not be reversed, the Trusteeship Agreement would not be revived even if the Court were to give a Judgment on the merits, the Northern Cameroons would not be joined to Cameroun Republic, Northern Cameroons' union with Nigeria would not be invalidated, and the United Kingdom would have no right or authority to take any action with a view to satisfying the underlying desires of Cameroun Republic. The function of the Court was to state the law, but its judgment must be capable of having some practical consequences. The Court therefore dismissed the case instituted by Cameroun Republic. For that country this was a resounding humiliation considering that its political leadership had boasted that the Northern Cameroons was going to be grabbed.
12. The Northern British Cameroons became extinct by operation of law when it was incorporated in Nigeria on 1 June 1961 following the decision taken by the Northern Cameroons on 12 February 1961 to that effect, a decision endorsed by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1608 (XV), implemented by the United Kingdom and Nigeria by treaty dated 29 May 1961, and judicially taken notice of by the International Court of Justice in Case Concerning the Northern Cameroons.
13. After its pathetic efforts to grab the Northern Cameroons failed at the United Nations in April 1961 and also in Case Concerning the Northern Cameroons Cameroun Republic declared 1 June of each year a so-called 'day of national mourning' and, aping France in this regard, stated that the Northern Cameroons was Cameroun Republic's own Alsace-Lorraine that would some day have to be recovered by Cameroun Republic. This was not just a monumentally asinine joke; it was in law a form of subversive intervention in Nigeria, a piece of propaganda with intent to foment revolt within Nigeria, violative of international law. Nigeria and the United Nations were not amused. The French instructed Cameroun Republic to end the absurdity and the instruction was promptly obeyed. No one has since heard of Cameroun Republic's famous June 1 day of national mourning again. But now Cameroun Republic feels able to muddy the waters again! But like before it has failed.
14. The Southern Cameroons has no mandate or authority whatsoever to claim to speak for a people that unquestionable and firmly forms a component part of the Nigerian people.
15. Historically, the Southern Cameroons has never spoken for the Northern Cameroons. Southern Cameroons' struggle for sovereign statehood has never been understood to include, has never included and will never include the territory of the Northern Cameroons. When our leaders from 1950 to 1953 demanded and obtained regional status their demand was confined to the territory of the Southern Cameroons. The representatives of the Southern Cameroons in constitutional talks at London and Lagos, at the meeting held at London in 1960 with the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the plebiscite issue, and in pre-plebiscite talks with Cameroun Republic never at any time included the leaders of the Northern Cameroons. The Southern Cameroons has thus throughout never purported to speak on behalf of or to represent the whole of the British Cameroons Trust Territory but only the Southern Cameroons. If historically the struggle of the Southern Cameroons for sovereign statehood has never involved the territory of the Northern Cameroons how all of a sudden can that struggle now involve that territory long extinct both as a legal and a political expression and firmly within the territory of another State?
Given the above facts it is difficult to see how anyone, except for the ignorant and mischievous interloper, can possibly make any parallel between erstwhile Northern Cameroons and the Southern Cameroons Sovereignty Question. The British Southern Cameroons Restoration Government declares emphatically that the Southern Cameroons Sovereignty Question does not and will never involve the erstwhile Northern Cameroons long since extinguished. The purveyors of confusion would do well to fish for confusion elsewhere
